On the morning of 13 September 2021, a ceremony to mark the signing of a Memorandum of Strategic Cooperation between the Open University of China (OUC) and the People’s Government of Binzhou Municipality, as well as to unveil the OUC Rural Revitalisation College, was held at the Bohai Institute of Advanced Technology.
Jing Degang, secretary of the Party Committee and President of the OUC, and She Chunming, secretary of Binzhou Municipal Party Committee, inaugurated the Rural Revitalisation College. Jing Degang and Song Yongxiang, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and Mayor of Binzhou, signed the memorandum on behalf of the two parties. Lin Yu, deputy director of the Department of Vocational and Adult Education of the Ministry of Education (MOE), attended and addressed the ceremony, which was presided over by Binzhou vice mayor, Mu Jie.
According to the memorandum, the OUC decided to set up a Rural Revitalisation College in Binzhou to serve the economic and social development of the city and its surrounding areas, explore a new model of university-enterprise cooperation and industry-education integration and a new mechanism for the training of applied and technical professionals, and create a Binzhou model of training professionals for rural revitalisation.
Jing Degang pointed out that the establishment of the Rural Revitalisation College in Binzhou is an important way for the OUC and Binzhou Municipal Party Committee and People’s Government of Binzhou Municipality to fully implement the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council’s rural revitalisation strategy in a comprehensive way and is an important achievement of the joint efforts to develop vocational education in Shandong under the guidance of the MOE’s Department of Vocational and Adult Education. He hopes that the two sides will take the signing of the memorandum as an opportunity to make tangible contributions to the revitalisation of rural areas in Binzhou and throughout the country.
First, he noted that it is important to take a step out and connect with industries and develop professionals with a close focus on key industries in the city and on the basis of industrial clusters. Second, education-centric measures must be taken, giving full play to the advantages of the OUC in order to deliver education that will become an essential part of the government and industries and be positively recognised by learners. We should make community education a new channel for national education, external training a new growth point, and education for older adults a new field for the Rural Revitalisation College. Third, emphasis should be placed on strengthening development, actively serving industries with education, promoting the integration of industry and education, and accelerating the transformation from a traditional driving force to one of a new type in order to create dynamism for high-quality local economic and social development. Fourth, we should open a new chapter in serving people’s livelihoods and helping to safeguard the livelihoods of people in Binzhou, which will be an important duty of the Rural Revitalisation College. The OUC will cooperate with other related institutions in accordance with the unified deployment of Binzhou Municipal Party Committee and Government in a timely manner and play a leading role in serving people's livelihood, especially in terms of employment and entrepreneurship.
Song Yongxiang pointed out that the signing of the memorandum marks the opening of a new chapter of win-win cooperation between the two sides. It is an inevitable requirement for implementing rural revitalisation and construction and promoting the high-quality development of vocational education, an inevitable trend for both sides to give full play to their complementary advantages and seek common prosperity and win-win results, and also an inevitable choice for promoting the construction of a city with dual functions characterised by “industry-education integration and industrial innovativeness.” Binzhou is a pilot city for the MOE-province joint construction of a foundation for the innovation and development of national vocational education. Scientific and technological innovation has become an endogenous driving force for the development of Binzhou, which boasts five advantageous industries: high-end aluminium, urban chemicals, smart textiles, grain processing, and animal husbandry and aquaculture. Binzhou pledges to provide the best possible services, conditions, and environment for the OUC, jointly promote the construction of rural education and the Rural Revitalisation College, and develop the college to a new level so that it develops its own characteristics and becomes a famous brand.
Lin Yu stressed that the rural revitalisation strategy is an important strategic measure to connect the “Two Centenary Goals,” fulfil the original mission of the Party, and solidly promote common prosperity. The joint efforts of the OUC and Binzhou to build a Rural Revitalisation College reflect the responsibility and love and care for the people of both parties. The development of the Rural Revitalisation College will further enhance the ability and strength of the OUC to serve regional economic and social development, and will also serve to make outstanding contributions to the diversified development of higher education in Binzhou, the cultivation of rural revitalisation professionals, and the construction of a learning society in Binzhou and beyond. It is hoped that the OUC will, as always, increase investment in resources and intellectual power for the Rural Revitalisation College, and ensure the standardised and high-quality operation of the Rural Revitalisation College. At the same time, it is hoped that Binzhou Municipal Government will increase policy supply and services for the development of the Rural Revitalisation College in order to safeguard its sound development.
Xing Shunfeng, chief inspector of Shandong Provincial Department of Education; OUC vice presidents Ju Chuanjin and Li Song, as well as relevant personnel from the OUC Academic Affairs Department, the Faculty of Agroforestry and Medicine, and the Party Committee Office/President's Office; Wang Jindong, vice chairman of Binzhou Municipal Political Consultative Conference and secretary general of Binzhou Municipal Government; Jiao Benqiang, vice chairman of Binzhou Municipal Political Consultative Conference; and relevant responsible comrades from the Binzhou Municipal Government and Municipal Education Working Committee attended the event.
By OUC